Dr. David KimbroFSU Coastal & Marine Lab

Hey folks,

Where did my winter of catching up on work go? And why is spring quickly hurtling into summer? YIKES!

…Okay, I feel better. All of us here feel a little behind on things, because this past winter and spring have been full of other projects (in addition to the oyster one) such as investigating how the oil spill affected marshes throughout the west coast of Florida and examining what all of those snails are up to out on Bay Mouth Bar. But now that summer is almost upon us, it’s time to move all hands on deck back towards the ambitious summer oyster goals.

Environmental vs. Predator Effects.

To lay the ground work for this summer’s oyster research, I spent a few days in St. Augustine, Florida, which is where we will conduct our colossal field experiment. As a recap of the oyster objectives, we spent year 1 monitoring the oyster food web at 12 estuaries between Florida to North Carolina. Well, we found some cool patterns regarding the food web and water-filtration/ nutrient cycling services on oyster reefs (see the 2010 wrap-up). So, now we want to know what’s causing those patterns. Are differences in oyster reefs between NC to FL due purely to differences in water temperature, salinity, or food for oysters (phytoplankton)? Or, do we have a higher diversity of predators down south that are exerting more “top-down” pressure on the southern reefs? Or, is it a combination of the environment and predators? Continue reading →

Rob Diaz de VillegasWFSU-TV

When I heard it was supposed to rain on Saturday, I was a little bummed. I was planning on taking the family to the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab Open House followed by the FSU Spring Game (where my 12-week old son could attend his first football game featuring my two favorite teams). Luckily, the storms rolled through early in the morning and made for a nice day at the coast.

I started off by visiting my friends at the Randall Hughes and David Kimbro labs. Robyn and Emily held down the fort in the Hughes lab, where kids watched a very peculiar sport. As Randall’s previous post promised, there were indeed periwinkle snail races. As you can see from the photo at the right here, the snails were color coded (white and blue) and numbered so that they could be told apart. Some crown conchs (periwinkle predators) were placed into the tubs to give the smaller snails some incentive to climb. The fastest climbers won. Let’s watch part of one race:

Writing grants, collecting field data, looking at samples in the lab- activities such as these occupy the majority of a researcher’s time. But sharing why the subject of the research is cool and interesting with the public is an important part of the job as well.

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

Open House at the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory
Saturday, April 16
10:00am – 3:00pm

David and an undergraduate research assistant at FSUCML Open House 2009

If you’ve been holding back your comments and questions as you read the blog, then this weekend is your chance to ask them in person! David and I, along with our graduate students and technicians, will be participating in the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab Open House on Saturday from 10:00am to 3:00pm.

Mike PlummerWFSU-TV

I have known John Spohrer since the late 1980’s, when he was introduced to me as one of the locals who lived year-round on St. George Island. I often rented houses with friends for weekends on the island back in those wacky 80’s and 90’s and he was always a welcome addition to whatever revelry would breakout in our kitchen, on our deck or on the beach.

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll realize that we often talk about similar research questions or ideas in the context of different projects. As David mentioned in his description of the Baymouth Bar project, this overlap is usually intentional: as ecologists, we’re interested not only in the specific habitats that we study, but also in the underlying factors that affect these habitats and the valuable services that they provide to we humans.

It may appear at times that we’ve been covering a diverse array of topics, and while this is true, all of these topics are interconnected- a web of topics centered around a couple of central themes. The diagram below is the map that shows where every post-topic fits into these central themes. Even the artists, writers, and photographers we occasionally feature have their place amongst ecological processes like sedimentation and the non-consumptive effects of predators. Every post from here on out will have one of these icons on it- if you don’t know what the icon means, just click on it and you’ll be back at this figure with an explanation:

Katie LotterhosFSU Department of Biological Sciences, FSU

When we look at a salt marsh, we see thousands of stems of cordgrass. But in reality, the coastline may be made up of only a few different genetic individuals. This is because Spartina can spread by growing clones of itself, with the exact same genetic code (a genotype). Why does it matter if we know whether or not a salt marsh is made up of one or many different genotypes? Well, different genotypes will have different abilities to resist pests or disease, or they may be tastier to eat for the little marsh critters like snails and grasshoppers. Since some genotypes will be better than others in different situations, we care about genetic diversity because it can be a buffer against an uncertain environment.

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

Last week, David and I (along with all the students and technicians in our labs, and over 500 other ecologists/students) attended the Benthic Ecology Meeting in Mobile, AL. You may well wonder – what goes on at a meeting of ecologists? And what does “benthic” mean anyway?

Cristina Lima MartinezFSU Coastal & Marine Lab

Dozens of different mollusk species interact within a relatively small area at Bay Mouth Bar, from all manner of bivalves to the predatory snails that eat them (and each other).

First Impressions
As soon as you arrive to BMB, it is easy to imagine and feel the same curiosity and fascination that Robert Paine brimmed with when he first immersed himself in the sand bar fifty years ago.

If someday you have the opportunity to visit BMB at low tide, then you would receive much pleasure in looking at 40000 m2 of sand, full of awesome critters! Twenty minutes by kayak, that’s it!

A listing of the animals seen in the slideshow is at the end of this post.

March is Seagrass Awareness Month, so it seems a fitting time to share some photos we took last fall. Seagrass beds are an under-appreciated habitat; they’re very productive and are more important than meets the eye (here I admit that neither seagrass beds or salt marshes seemed all that interesting to me until I actually went into them and took a closer look). Here are a few quick facts: Continue reading →

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

A sure sign of spring for me is an increase in time in the field. (Robyn and Emily would probably disagree with me, since they have been out in the field regularly throughout the winter!) I have been in the lab or office since December, which feels like a long time, and I’m really looking forward to getting back in the field. I find it is so much easier to come up with new research questions and develop insights into what the animals and plants are doing out there when I’m actually there with them. I guess that makes sense!

Watch EcoShakespeare Online Now!

Our local ecology helps us to understand Shakespeare's take on nature in a "Midsummer Night's Dream," while his words give us unexpected insight into the wild areas surrounding Tallahassee. Come with us into the Big Woods, a rare tract of old growth longleaf pine flat woods. Join us as we forage form wild edibles by Lake Iamonia. Follow water with us as we trace the issues afflicting Wakulla Springs. It's a different take on the immortal words of the Bard.